So much for tight-passive play at this limit. I focused much more now on well placed aggression and player reads then before. Look at the example above. Even if I didn't have such a monster as 53-offsuit I'd reraise here with alot more hands to isolate against that player, since that player was very easy to read, and I had seen him play hundreds of hands. Raising from early position his only holdings could be AA/KK/QQ/AK/AQs. And without an A, K or Q on the flop I'd find out what kind of hand he could have very easily. Other then that, he folds to aggression pretty easily when he misses the board.

The flop was great for me, since he would not have raised JJ or AJ from that position. And since he didn't cap before the flop he could only have AK/AQ or perhaps QQ.

Improving on the turn I fired another shot at him, though I would have done the same if I hadn't. Only had he called on the turn aswell I'd know he'd have QQ or two hearts, which would be problematic, and I would have to let go of my hand there regardless of what the river brought, unless he'd give me a free showdown.

I've been playing like this quite often, and when done against the right players it worked well. I'd fold AQo to raisers while I would call with small connectors like 910o or 97s if they were players who were easy to read.

Same goes for when I were the preflop raiser. If people don't tell me I'm behind by raising my continuation bet on the flop, I'll lead out on the turn and perhaps the river aswell. It's a break-even play generally since I pick up alot of pots from people folding to me, and lose many to bad hands, but since this also leads to people calling or raising me with many mediocre hands I get paid off much better when I actually do hold a hand.

Checkraising is also a thing I employ much less now. Why checkraise when you can donkbet like a fish?

For you fish out there, let's first explain what a donkbet is. Let's say you hold 99, you call, someone raises, you call again, and the flop comes with an ace and two other cards. So you check and someone raises (he probably has the ace). You call like any fish would and the turn comes up with a 9. So the proper move now is to check, wait till the one with the ace bets out, and then reraise him. But a fish would not understand that logic and bets out on the turn to betray he has a strong hand.

I like donking out with flushdraws, open ended straight draws, sets, top or overpair on a rag flop etc. Since people don't like getting bet into when they were the aggressor preflop they often reraise, and fold much less then if I'd checkraise them or checkcall to river. Even while in some on those situations it would be much safer and profitable to just checkcall, or checkraise for value, I prefer aggression over standard solid play. Checkcalling will not make me win many pots without a showdown, and getting used to passive play will not be any good as I move up in limits.

The plan at this limit was to play about 10k hands and continue till I'd think I'd be ready to move up another limit. So far I have a $196 profit after 9343 hands (it was 208 dollars about 2k hands ago but I made the mistake of multitabling again, which didn't work well with my playstyle).

To end the blog today, here's another example of the Monster holding in action:

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